Frontline Might Make You Think Twice About Flying Cheap

Those regional air carriers who connect the dots from major hubs to smaller airports are coming under additional scrutiny of late after a series of fatal crashes. Or are they? Frontline's Flying Cheap asks if the public spotlight is bright enough to expose what has happened to the airline industry since the 1990s. Will recent investigations force changes and perhaps prevent more mayhem in the skies? You may want to ponder why your cheap ticket says Continental but some other carrier's pilot with lower standards of performance is actually flying you to your destination. How experienced is your pilot? Does he make only $22,000/year, earning income only a quarter of the time he's on duty -- when the plane is sealed and wheels up, not while he's waiting for the plane to be ready, etc. And does your pilot share an apartment with eight other pilots in what they refer to as a crash pad near the airport? Is your pilot being compelled to fly when he's overly tired or not feeling well?

The New York Daily News says the NTSB is calling for poorly trained pilots to be grounded. Initial reports suggested that ice on the wings caused the crash, but it turned out otherwise. Frontline says a series of pilot errors due to poor training, lousy test scores, and flying while tired were the actual causes. Ultimately, you may want to know if your pilot is skilled enough to pull the stick instead of push it so he doesn't cause the Q400 Bombardier you're on to tumble to the ground and burst into flames, killing all aboard plus others on the ground. That's what happened last February 12th on a regional carrier's approach at Buffalo.

That flight was out of Newark, btw...